In the automated packaging of goods such as soft drink cans, pouches, and other similar products into cartons or boxes, the cartons typically can be fed from a stack or supply of preglued carton sleeves, opened, and deposited on a carton conveyor prior to being fed into a product packaging machine. The cartons generally will be deposited within the flights of a carton conveyor with the products thereafter being inserted through the open ends of the carton sleeve. Thereafter, the end flaps of the cartons are folded and typically adhesively attached to seal the ends of the cartons. The cartons often are fed into the flights of the carton conveyor for a packaging machine by a rotary style carton feeder. Such rotary feeders typically will include a series of vacuum cups that are rotated about a carton path for picking individual cartons from a stack or supply of cartons, and rotating the cartons downwardly and into a flight of the carton conveyor moving therebelow.
Such conventional rotary feeders tend to have a fixed geometry, however, which limits their path of movement, and thus limits the size or range of sizes of cartons that can be fed and/or deposited into the flights of the carton conveyor. To feed different size cartons, it therefore generally has been necessary to adjust or reconfigure the feeder elements of most conventional rotary feeders, and/or adjust the height or position of the feeder to accommodate the feeding of tall, narrow cartons or shorter, wider cartons as necessary. Such adjustments are needed to ensure that there will be a sufficiently deep draw and/or pick of the cartons to enable the cartons to be sufficiently opened by the time they are deposited in the next selected flight of the carton conveyor, as well as to ensure that the vacuum cups of the rotary feeder, will not interfere with or engage the lugs of the carton flights as the cartons are deposited therein.
Accordingly, it can be seen that a need exists for a carton feeder that addresses the foregoing and other related and unrelated problems in the art.